BA Holidays from 1 April starter questions…

[Arnerd]

I’ve never really used BA Holidays other than one recent double TP offer with a car hire bundled in.

However, with the new new loyalty scheme earning 1 point per £1 spent at BA Holidays, this will hopefully be my route to supplement the shortfall in flight spend going forward.

First question, will all my spend on BA holidays count towards eligible spend if I book stand alone car hire or hotel bookings without any flights? The FAQ only mentions flight+hotel and flight+car which are less attractive to me.

Second question, more for confirmation, is whether there a limit to how much spend can be routed through this channel? If not, I find this more practical than the 30% IB non-airline allowance.

Third question, assuming the above is possible, are BAH prices for stand alone car hire and hotels generally competitive versus going direct to provider?

Thank you!

[JDB]

@Arnerd – BA is quite specific in the FAQ –

You must book through the Flight + Hotel or Flight + Car option and add the individual British Airways Club number for each Member prior to travel to earn Tier Points for your British Airways Holidays package.

and it’s also clear that the points are split between the travellers if there’s more than one on the booking.

There’s no published limit of how much of your tier threshold that can be earned via BAH, so theoretically could be all of it.

As to whether the hotel or car hire booked via BAH represents good value, that’s very variable and specific to each booking. While BA gives you an overall holiday price, it’s quite easy to extrapolate the cost of the component parts to see if it’s a good price or not.

[NorthernLass]

I use BAH quite a bit. The competitiveness of the pricing varies a lot – for example very good for Spain and Canaries this autumn, but expensive for the US and Caribbean. Customer Service is very good, including in the event of disruption.

You need to check the conditions as well – car hire generally has a huge insurance excess, especially in Europe (at least 2000 euros). We have an annual policy to cover this anyway, but just something to be aware of.

[AndrewT]

As I always say each to their own, but there is a slightly strange conflict between trying to maximise tier points but finding flight inclusive packages less attractive.

There is rarely any point in booking BAH standalone cars or hotels, unless there is a particular promotion which makes it cheaper. The prices are generally in the ball park but rarely the best, and the car hire terms are always far less flexible than direct bookings which nearly always have free cancellation, even when paid up front.

Flight inclusive packages can be very competitive, so not sure why that would be of less interest.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Indeed @AndrewT makes a very good final point.

Most of my long haul trips have been booked as BA Hols.

The former I just add a night at the airport before the trip. So I get the ability to pay a deposit so my cash isn’t tied up for long periods plus the superior service of BA Hols agents.

This leaves me to book either a hotel they don’t offer or one where I get points / status benefits for booking direct.

But saying that I’m a solo flyer so I’d get all the TPs from the spend anyway.

[Arnerd]

If stand-alone BAH car hire or hotels don’t count towards eligible spend then my line of enquiry is pointless anyway.

I do lots of CE one-way journeys (both cash and Avios), often triangulating between three or more cities and with non-Oneworld airlines. I also require flexibility and make lots of changes to pre-existing bookings. That makes planning BAH flight+hotel or flight+car a little tricky, which is why I have never used it much.

Thank you for your insights and clarifications anyway.

[Ihar]

V disappointed that TP are shared between travellers (esp if booking expensive hotels). Not sure a family of 4 want to be giving their 2 toddlers the same amount of TP is useful for everyone….

That said, always found BAH car hire really good value. No hard sell on pickup, 2nd driver included, reasonable excess (zero in USA, though we also always take out separate insurance), and never had spurious charges added.

[davestat]

I’m booking any travel I have with BA as a BAH and paying the minimum deposit until a month before departure. I don’t see why I should fund BA when they keep making so many customer requested improvements to their service. I’ll wait until April to see what other news comes out.